Tales of lonely trails eBook

seemed vastly sore at himself. What a remarkable
hard luck story he told! He had come upon a flock
of turkeys, and they were rather difficult to see.
All of them were close, and running fast. He
shot eight times at eight turkeys and missed them all.
Too dark—­brush—­trees—­running
like deer. Copple had a dozen excuses. Then
he saw a turkey on a log ten feet away. He shot
twice. The turkey was a knot, and he had missed
even that.

Thereupon I seized my opportunity and reminded all
present how Copple had called out: “Turkey
number one! Turkey number two!” the day
I had missed so many. Then I said:

“Ben, you must have yelled out to-night like
this.” And I raised my voice high.

“Turkey number one—­Nix!... Turkey
number two—­missed, by Gosh!... Turkey
number three—­never touched him!...
Turkey number four—­No!... Turkey number
five—­Aw, I’m shootin’ blank
shells!... Turkey number six on the log—­bythunder, I can’tseestraight!”

We all had our fun at Copple’s expense.
The old bear hunter, Haught, rolled on the ground,
over and over, and roared in his mirth.

VII

Early next morning before the sun had tipped the pines
with gold I went down Barber Shop Canyon with Copple
to look for our horses. During the night our
stock had been chased by a lion. We had all been
awakened by their snorting and stampeding. We
found our horses scattered, the burros gone, and Copple’s
mules still squared on guard, ready to fight.
Copple assured me that this formation of his mules
on guard was an infallible sign of lions prowling
around. One of these mules he had owned for ten
years and it was indeed the most intelligent beast
I ever saw in the woods.

We found three beaver dams across the brook, one about
fifty feet long, and another fully two hundred.
Fresh turkey tracks showed in places, and on the top
of the longer dam, fresh made in the mud, were lion
tracks as large as the crown of my hat. How sight
of them made me tingle all over! Here was absolute
proof of the prowling of one of the great cats.

Beaver tracks were everywhere. They were rather
singular looking tracks, the front feet being five-toed,
and the back three-toed, and webbed. Near the
slides on the bank the water was muddy, showing that
the beaver had been at work early. These animals
worked mostly at night, but sometimes at sunset and
sunrise. They were indeed very cautious and wary.
These dams had just been completed and no aspens had
yet been cut for food. Beaver usually have two
holes to their home, one under the water, and the
other out on the bank. We found one of these outside
burrows and it was nearly a foot wide.

Upon our return to camp with the horses Haught said
he could put up that lion for us, and from the size
of its track he judged it to be a big one. I
did not want to hunt lions and R.C. preferred to keep
after bears. “Wal,” said Haught,
“I’ll take an off day an’ chase thet
lion. Had a burro killed here a couple of years
ago.”